


Refuse to Lose

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Injury, Male Friendship, Mild Blood, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Pre-Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 05:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: When Linhardt fights Caspar in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, it's all a bit of fun, with a couple of scrapes and bruises.Five years later, their next encounter on the battlefield is anything but.





	Refuse to Lose

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Fire Emblem Compendium writing challenge on in-battle dialogue! This contains (fairly minor) spoilers up to and including Chapter 18 of the Golden Deer route

“Well, this is rather awkward, isn’t it?” Caspar’s voice called over the sound of the clash of weapons. Goddess, just when Linhardt had thought he was out of trouble, having fled Sylvain’s pursuit, he was caught by someone on a different opposing army. Mock battles truly were exhausting. “Will you surrender, or do I have to hit you?”

“Isn’t your father watching?” Linhardt asked, glancing up towards the hill where various nobles and members of the church were seated. Caspar didn’t follow his gaze, but he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “Guess I have to punch you, then.”

“Should I try running away to make it more convincing?” he asked.

“No!” Caspar said quickly. “If you do, his Highness might get you, and then he’d get me next. That would just be embarrassing.”

“How about up the hill?” Linhardt suggested. Ignatz was up there, by the look of it, Bernadetta having long since surrendered in the face of Lorenz’s lance. Maybe Caspar could take Ignatz too, for some extra kudos from his father, or maybe Ignatz would get him.

Either way, Linhardt would almost definitely be taking a trip to the infirmary today, if only to get a bump on the head looked at. “Sounds good to me. Better start running, Linhardt! I’m gonna get you!”

Linhardt couldn’t help but let out a laugh as he lifted the hem of his robe and started running away, Caspar chasing him at a decidedly slower pace than their old games. By his calculations, the Black Eagles had already lost this battle, after their early losses at the hands of the Blue Lions. Maybe Caspar had worked that one out too.

He was just reaching the top of the hill when he tumbled on the top steps, and Caspar, still barrelling forwards, tripped over him and fell on top. The temptation to try and shoot a spell of some kind was strong, but Linhardt...was laughing too much to get his thoughts straight. This battle was a complete farce when his friend was on the other side.

“Linhardt!” Ignatz called. “Are you okay? I don’t think I can get rid of him on my own.”

“Don’t worry,” Caspar returned, “I’ll get to you once Linhardt has surrendered.” With that, he started his ‘assault’, battering Linhardt’s shoulders with probably the weakest punches he’d ever seen from the other boy. When had he removed his gauntlets?

“Put some force into it, Caspar,” he teased, readying a Nosferatu spell. He could give up at any time, but Caspar would never let him hear the end of it if he did. An arrow landed square in one of Caspar’s leather shoulder pads. Well, at least Ignatz was trying.

“Easy for you to say,” he returned, but the weight of his blows didn’t get any heavier. “Come on, give up already!”

“I will when I get tired,” he said, letting the magic flow from his fingertips. Caspar winced as the spell hit him full force, and Linhardt felt slightly more invigorated. He was tiring, though.

“You’re always tired, Linhardt,” Caspar complained. “Don’t make me actually hurt you, okay?”

“Fine, fine, I’ll surrender,” he said. “Apologies, Ignatz, I wouldn’t want to faint. Who knows what my dangerous opponent would do then?”

“I’d probably have to carry you half the way back to the monastery, you baby,” Caspar said, grinning. “Go on, there’s a medic flying overhead right now, if you’re going to surrender then call her down.”

Linhardt sent a fire spell at him for good measure, and he’d admit to feeling a small amount of satisfaction when Caspar admitted defeat after just about scraping a victory against Ignatz. Ignatz couldn’t have taken him down on his own, after all.

-

Linhardt knew from the moment someone mentioned taking Fort Merceus that Caspar would probably be there. That conviction was only bolstered when Caspar was nowhere to be seen amongst the forces at Gronder Field.

He didn’t know how to feel. Obviously, they were enemies. They were on opposite sides. If Caspar challenged anyone in the army he was a part of, he’d pose a risk to their safety, a risk to their victory. He’d be a barrier in the way, preventing them from reaching Edelgard and seizing the future with both hands.

He wanted to feel Caspar’s hands in his own again. The thought came unwittingly, mixed up in memories of playing with Caspar as a child, fixing up scratched knees and bruised elbows. He’d told the Professor that he found it increasingly easy to kill, and he didn’t like to mourn or dwell on the past.

That was true, it really was. But the connection he felt to people he barely knew as opposed to the one he felt to Caspar? They were completely different. Caspar was his first and one of his only friends.

Caspar was guarding a checkpoint at the lower portion of Fort Merceus. When Claude and his forces entered through the top, sweeping through, it was their job to cut a path through the bottom, to march towards the Death Knight. To cut off the escape routes. To make sure no one made it out alive.

Linhardt felt sick. Blood was still difficult, but the prospect of Caspar’s blood? His legs shook as he advanced. Past the reinforcements to the south. Towards the mages in the south west. Caspar, in the courtyard just beyond. The fighting hadn’t reached him yet.

What was he doing? He’d never run away, Linhardt knew that for sure. He had always been too proud to run away, to admit defeat. So he was there, preparing for a fight. How much had he changed? Had he grown much? Linhardt hadn’t seen him for a while.

He probably shouldn’t be thinking of their closing height difference when he was preparing to kill his best friend.

He opened with a ball of fire before Caspar even had time to react. Felix, on his left, was taking on one of the other soldiers in the area, and Byleth was to his right, providing support, readying themselves to cut through the courtyard and challenge the Death Knight.

“Oh,” Caspar said, with a weak cough. “This is, uh, kind of awkward, isn’t it?” He looked...dangerous. There’d be no running away, no play punches, not anymore. Armour covered his chest, the gauntlets on his fists were glinting silver, there was a huge axe strapped to his back.

If he didn’t end this now, Caspar would. They were enemies on a battlefield in a war. “Flayn!” he called. “A little help, please?”

“On my way!” she replied, and he felt the magic she’d long since mastered wash over him when she danced. He had to end this.

Linhardt readied an excalibur spell. He had no choice, he had no other options, this was the best he could do. He had to protect himself over Caspar, because what if Felix ended up with an axe in his back while he bled out? What if something similar happened to the Professor?

Regret hit him the moment the spell left his fingertips. The wind hit Caspar full force, knocking him to the ground, and Linhardt raced forwards. It was the only thing he could think to do. Caspar hit the stone floor beneath him with a thud. His eyes were closed.

“Caspar!” he called. Unwittingly, he prepared a healing spell. White magic doesn’t work on the dead but please, Caspar, please. He had to be alive. He had to keep breathing. Maybe if he caught him before his heart stopped beating maybe it would be enough. Maybe they’d let him go. Maybe he could go on to fight another day and maybe he’d hate Linhardt from now on but that didn’t matter if Caspar could just live.

“Still- still kicking, Lin,” came the rasping voice, after the first healing spell finally managed to flow from Linhardt’s shaking hands. “You really did a number on me, eh?”

“Stop,” he said, laying both his hands on top of Caspar’s chest. He was still breathing. Still moving. Still talking, even though the force of that blow must have broken a bone. The fall would have done worse. But there was time. There was still time. “You’ve probably cracked a rib.”

“Makes a change, doesn’t it?” he asked, and he coughed roughly, leaving blood on his chin. Linhardt needed to act fast. “Last time, I beat you. You’ve come- such a long way.”

“Please stop running your mouth,” Linhardt said. “I only have so much energy.” The battle was moving on, now; the Professor had checked on him very briefly, and then moved on into the fray. They were safe, for now, but Caspar...Caspar was still in a bad spot.

“What doesn’t kill me just makes me stronger,” he said, and made a movement that was probably trying to be a shrug but he halted it halfway through and grunted in pain. 

“I’ll just try and kill you again if you keep talking,” he said, and Caspar stilled for a moment. The wrong thing to say, then. He’d have to work out how to apologise later, if Caspar even had a later he could accept apologies in.

“You look tired, Lin,” he said. He sounded sad, and he was right. Linhardt was tired. Tired of war, tired of bloodshed, tired of seeing people he cared about, even slightly, suffer. Tired of feeling magic flow through his body until he exhausted his very being, just so someone could go and cause more bloodshed, get hurt again. He was tired.

“Yes, because I’m piecing your insides back together with my willpower alone,” he replied. Caspar chuckled and the sound was still wrong. Linhardt was losing hope, but he’d get there. He’d get there.

“You didn’t have to do this,” he said. “We were enemies. I was- I was going to punch you. Real hard, too.” More than one or two blows from Caspar would have been a death sentence for him. Linhardt just had to tell himself that it was better that it turned out this way round. He wouldn’t wish Caspar the pain of seeing his dead body - Caspar had always been softer than him.

“We were only enemies for a minute,” he said. Maybe they’d be enemies again soon. Maybe Caspar would return to Edelgard’s side and he’d have to fight him again. But maybe Caspar wouldn’t do that. He just had to find out. And give Caspar the chance to decide where his life was going to lead for once.

The noise was rising in the area beyond them, and within moments a soldier raced towards him. “The order is to evacuate immediately,” he said. “Right now, as fast as you can. I don’t know why.” He raced away again.

Linhardt’s gaze fixed on Caspar. “Can you walk?” he asked. He knew the answer was no before Caspar even shook his head. “Okay, I’ll help.”

“No!” Caspar coughed from the exertion even of that. He reached for Linhardt’s hands, gripping them both in his own and meeting his eyes. “No. Linhardt, I’ll just slow you down. If something is happening, you need to get away. No sense in both of us dying here.”

His mind was racing. He’d just exhausted himself for the sake of saving Caspar, he would not and could not abandon him to possible death now. He just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair for the Goddess to force him to do such a thing. Caspar’s gaze was accusing, afraid, desperate. He didn’t want to die. But most of all, he didn’t want Linhardt to die.

There was so much left unsaid between them. So many arguments they still needed to have. Meals they needed to share. Adventures to muddle through together. “No,” he said. “Caspar, I’ll be right with you. Find a healer as soon as you can.”

He gripped the staff of Cethleann that was always within arm’s reach, and focused all the energy he could on a warp spell. He just needed to get Caspar far, far away. He could do the rest on his own if he really tried. He just needed Caspar to not be here.

Caspar disappeared to Goddess knows where. As far away as Linhardt could manage with the amount of energy he had left in his body. The only thing left to do was run. He wasn’t fast, but he hoped beyond anything else that he was fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is sadly not how my playthrough turned out (I intentionally left Caspar alive only for dubstep to happen) but I wanted to write these kids being happier. Thank you for reading, if you're so inclined please leave a comment, it means a lot! :)


End file.
